New Body of Focused Drawing

To start Unit X I have wanted to continue to build upon the successful elements of my practise unit, taking a more focused approach. I felt that I went through a drawing journey in the previous Practise Unit, taking a variety of approaches to creating visual research.  I am beginning with additional photography on intricate detail within decorative architecture to help develop an extended body of visual research. Some visual studies from the practise unit will still be evident in the new project, however, my drawing style influenced by Barbara Hulanicki was the point which I felt inspired in the previous unit therefore I aim to continue this approach to produce further drawing material.

The purpose of my drawings is to enable photoshop manipulation towards digital designs. Therefore, in terms of a body of drawing work for this project, I will work towards a fresh sketchbook of working drawings that will enable me to establish professional collections of digital prints.

Context - Wallpaper

I was keen to challenge my designs and ideas within two very different contexts. Designing for wallpaper in contrast to gift wrap has encouraged me to consider a very different scale. I have paid particular attention the the Rorschach Collection by Timorous Beasties. What I am drawn to about their work is the composition and shape within their designs. They tend to feature mirroring and reflection which I feel breaks away from half drop or block motif patterns which are more often considered for repeats. 

I enjoy seeing how this kind of experimentation can change my drawings from their original state, resulting in imagery that has gone through a process of digital manipulation.After exploring composition in my black and white design development file, I found that mirroring and reflecting my drawings within a repeated workspace gives more potential to my designs.













I was very conscious that my designs focused strongly around a white background which can sometimes flatten the design or leave it lacking in elements. However with vibrant colours featuring in the imagery of my designs, I found that inputting colours in the background layers dulled the overall image. Timourous Beasties allowed me to see how using white in the background of a design could work successfully.  


During my development process, I found that my designs were naturally adopting a stripe composition. Faced with the option of having them vertical or horizontal, I looked at the Rorchach collection by Timorous Beasties and Barbara Hulanickis collection for Graham and Brown and found that vertical stripes were more desirable within wallpaper designs. With this comparison, it allowed me to see what these designers created for a varied target audience.

As both of my collections were inspired by the same body of visual research, I wanted there to be a clear differentiation between the two. Colour pallet was something that I wanted to push forward in Unit X and looking at artists helped inform a new approach towards my second collection. I came across this design by Christian Lacroix.

Previously I had spoke about colour injection which could focus around a black and white design. I felt that this would also illustrate how I work in terms of designing in black and white and then using digital means to incorporate colour.

Context - Gift Wrap

For my gift wrap collection, I was keen to produce designs that targeted a higher end market. Paperchase, Clintons and Marks and Spencers are retailers with audiences that would be more likely to purchase designer giftwrap. After considering their products, I decided that I wanted to produce designs for sheets of wrapping paper as opposed to rolls. I feel that this gives a suggestion of quality to designs that are more pieces of artwork rather than a design that is produced on a larger scale and hidden within a roll. I also found that designs which include printed processes such as foiling or printed relief work achieve higher price margins attracting a higher end customer. 

£1.75 per sheet of foiled paper from Clintons

£1.00 for two sheets of wrapping paper from Marks and Spencer.

I have gone on to create samples inspired by this research and my previous experimentation with in Puff printing from the Practise Unit.

(Photograph of flocked samples)

The final Unit X

To start Unit X I have wanted to continue to build upon the successful elements of my practise unit taking a more focused approach. A new learning agreement has helped me do this;

Building upon the work I have achieved in the previous Practise unit, my intentions for Unit X are to create a focused and professional body of work that would be suitable for paper-based products within the interior/ giftware markets. I aim to explore and combine the processes of puff screen printing and digital print in order to develop two collections of samples. I will begin by developing further drawings to give me the greatest potential when creating designs. I am going to experiment with scale, technique and colour within my chosen print processes to achieve the optimum for my final collection. 

I limited myself with colour in the previous project which has lead me to the decision to return back to my original visual images from my time travelling and seek a more vibrant and varied colour pallet.

In terms of contextual research I want to expand my awareness of the products further by paying particular attention to surface pattern designers and companies in the interiors/giftware fields also informing my designs and sample experimentation. In particular I will look at Paperchase for their high end quality, Barbara Hulanicki for her relief printing process and Linda Florence for her collaboration of printed processes. I am going to undertake contextual research into giftware companies in terms of quality, process and target market to inform a more bespoke collection that combines the handcraft skill of screen print with digital production. I aim to create a collection of samples for gift wrap which will incorporate gift tags for each design.  

To challenge and test my designs in a different context, I am going to work towards a second collection for wallpaper. I want to differentiate this to my gift wrap collection through colour and my aimed target market. For this collection I would like to test my ideas towards a more commercial outcome. Visualisations will help identify the success of my prints in a realistic context throughout my project. I will continue to update my blog on a weekly basis to reflect clearly and continuously on my creative journey.